URLs du Jour

One of the most remarkable statements ever made by the CEO of a major corporation generated relatively little notice or pushback. But just a couple of weeks ago, there was Tim Cook, the head of Apple, spitting in the eye of the very economy that made his company the highest valued corporation on the planet.

"I am not a big fan of regulation," Cook told Axios in an interview. "I'm a big believer in the free market. But we have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn't worked here. I think it's inevitable that there will be some level of regulation... I think the Congress and the administration at some point will pass something."

Nick is pissed, understandably so. And Nick writes like an angel
when he's pissed.

As always "the free market is not working" is Progressive-speak for
"the free market isn't producing the results I want".

I hereby disavow my conservatism, which I disavowed after disavowing my liberalism, which I disavowed after being conservative after being liberal. While I realize my many readers, who have followed me faithfully throughout my tortured ideological voyage, will find this latest about-face disappointing, I have no choice given our current political climate.

As I write in my new book, “I Used To Be Conservative: Confessions Of A Conservative Who Used To Be A Conservative Who Used To Be A Liberal,” “I could no longer be a conservative, because being a conservative could no longer be an option.” How true that is.

It helps if you have been paying attention to recent ideological
stylings of (among others) Max Boot.

Can the government pass laws that effectively silence groups on one side of a political debate but not the other?

You might think not. After all, under the Constitution, the government is supposed to treat everyone equally — especially when it comes to our participation in politics.

Unfortunately, under the guise of “campaign-finance reform,” some states have enacted laws that muzzle some groups but not others. Massachusetts, for example, has completely banned for-profit businesses from giving money to political candidates and committees. But it allows unions to give candidates and committees up to $15,000. The state also lets unions — but not businesses — create their own political-action committees, which they can use to give even more money.

Jacob is a lawyer with the Goldwater Institute, and is helping out
on a lawsuit challenging the Massachusetts law.

The state’s demographics guru, Ken Johnson of the UNH Carsey School
of Public Policy, regularly crunches census data to give big-picture
looks at our population. A report out today is good news for this
aged state: More young adults are moving here from other states.
(Note to pearl-clutching white nationalists: In this case the word
“migrants” covers anybody who moves across a state border,
regardless of background.)

I like the image of "pearl-clutching white nationalists', although
"pearl-clutching" was considered to be a
cliché
by Slate even back in 2012.

A recent article in the Staten Island Advance newspaper started with a seemingly random Billy Joel reference: “A bottle of red. A baggie of weed.” As New York state moves ever closer to legalizing adult-use marijuana, this scene from a cannabis-infused Italian restaurant represents a more modern New York state of mind, indeed. But what follows this tongue-in-cheek lede is a disturbing trend we’re starting to see more and more as the commercial cannabis industry continues to expand.

As the Advance reported: “As lawmakers in Albany draft a bill to legalize adult use of marijuana, a coalition of wine and liquor store owners is campaigning for the right to stock their shelves with the product. Organizers of The Last Store on Main Street (LSMS), which recently fought to keep wine out of grocery stores, said the effort is motivated in part by the fear of losing business.”

Liquor stores wanting a piece of the legal marijuana pie are nothing
new. From the live-free-or-die beauty of northeastern New
Hampshire to the laid-back chill of California’s southwestern-most
city San Diego, the conversation about liquor stores retailing
adult-use cannabis is common. In fact, the same debate rocked Canada
more than a year ago. […]

OK, saying this discussion is happening in northeastern New
Hampshire is a little weird. It depends on how you define things, of
course, and the state is kind of funny-shaped, but at first glance
there's nothing up there.

As near as I can tell, the author's case against mixing marijuana
and liquor sales is esthetic. Roughly paraphrasing: "Man, alcohol is a poison, man,
and nobody ever died from smoking too much weed, man."

But (in any case), the most recent legal-pot bill here
specified
that
the New Hampshire Liquor Commission be the relevant body to regulate
sales to the citizenry. Like Tommy Lee Jones in The
Fugitive, though, I don't care.

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